These are the first of three planned sections of the article on "Constraint". The introduction to section II (Designing for constraint) is also included, but will eventually contain analysis of the constraint used in the games in question (Universalis, Primetime Adventures, and Dogs in the Vineyard and section III (Engineering Constraint) will likely be the longest section in the essay. Both of those sections are in progress, but I'm not ready to show them to anyone yet. I'm also currently revising the introduction.

(Note: I may, if I can find one, toss in some stuff about some roleplaying text that derives the majority of its intended constraint from short fiction pieces and book art for Section II. Suggestions are welcome. I may also end up writing a short section on some of the more recent forms of constraint I've seen such as Ben's ritual phrases in Polaris and Jonathan's comic introduction for Seadog Tuxedo.) Without further ado...


What it is, is...

Clearly in any collaborative effort you self-censor your contributions. [Example.] The process by which you assemble a set of rules for self-censoring involves too many various components to fully detail. Even if such examination were possible it would be outside the scope of this essay, but a partial analysis of this self-censoring phenomenon is necessary. This self-censoring criteria is what I call “constraint”.

Constraint is present in all social activities. It is the thing which tells us not to stab people in the face whenever we feel like it, and not to insult people's mothers. At this level, constraint is largely cultural in nature. It is required to ensure that the social interaction itself can continue with as few obstacles as possible. This is an incredibly important aspect of constraint, and this essay will touch on it briefly, but the main thrust of the essay is focused on some of the more specific uses constraint has for the act of roleplaying.

In the collaborative act of roleplaying this self-censoring serves a very important purpose: it reduces negotiation time. There are so many potential contributions to play, and so few of them are actually appropriate to the group's goals. For example: if I was involved in a group of screenwriters brainstorming for The Matrix and I suggest that all of a sudden, right at the end, space aliens descend from the sky and slaughter everyone, my suggestion would likely be rejected immediately. This rejection is not because my idea is inherently bad, but because it is not in line with the goals of the group. So if I self-censor and don't bring it up then I have saved everyone time. I has saved me the time of making a suggestion that the group will reject, and it has saved the group the time to actually reject the suggestion.

Saving time is not the only thing that constraint does in roleplaying. In his article “Bricolage Applied”[Reference], Chris Lehrich points out that the act of roleplaying is made up of every action that happens. One of the implications of that idea is that the very act of suggesting something that gets rejected changes play.

This essay refers to the total body of self-censoring criteria as “constraint”.

The nature of the beast

Constraint is a purely social construct. It has no inherent existence on its own, and it is assembled for use only within a social situation; there is no need to censor your thoughts for your own consumption. This essay is intended to discuss the nature of constraint, its sources, and the impact it has on social interaction, specifically in the activity of roleplaying.

In theory constraint is a shared social construct. That is, all participants in the activity at hand share the same criteria for self-censoring. Of course this is the real world so truly identical criteria is impossible. The discrepancies between the constraints of participants, and the impact that those discrepancies may have on the social environment are further discussed in [Placeholder for Section title].

Since constraint is a social construct it must be developed entirely within a social context. This means that any given point of constraint can not be enforced on a group without its approval. This approval may be implicit or explicit, but the social group involved is still the final authority on the constraints it accepts.

This is not to say that the constraints of an activity can not be influenced by outside sources. In fact, one of the primary ways a social group assembles its constraints is by looking to shared outside sources. For example, a group that has as one of its social constraints the rule: “no profanity” is relying on the outside source of the culture at large to help determine what is and is not “profane”.

Further, in any social activity which draws its structure from a set of instructions, of which roleplaying is one, the social group implicitly agrees to abide by those instructions. It is important to remember that this is still a social choice, the group is by no means required to abide by all, or even any, of the instructions presented to them.

When things fall apart

Because constraint is a shared social concept no member of the social group has exactly the same understanding of what it is. That is not to say that a perfectly shared understanding of constraint is not be desired and worked toward, but it is an acknowledgment that such an understanding can only be approached, never actually attained.

There is a certain minimum amount of constraint required for any kind of social interaction to be at all possible. This level of constraint is typically cultural in nature. That is, the criteria for self-censoring are taught by the culture in which you are engaged in social interaction. In mainstream American culture these rules include things like: wearing clothes, not biting off the people's ears, not insulting someone's mother, and a whole host of other cultural mores.

This may be a good time to note the obvious: different cultures have different rules. More specifically, different sub-cultures have different rules, and for the purposes of constraint you can consider any specific combination of two people will have different “cultures” of a sort. Of course the changes as you get to more and more specific subcultures tend to be smaller and smaller.

One final note on cultural constraint: most people understand this sort of constraint at a nearly instinctual level. They have spent their entire life self-censoring and understanding the fact that different groups have different rules for what is and isn't appropriate.

When constraint doesn't match up at the social level you have serious problems. It is only to be expected that if I greet you by stabbing you in the eye, and you expected to be greeted with a handshake, we probably will not be able to do much with each other socially.

This has some specific, if less dire, implications for roleplaying. If you come to the table expecting that play will be bound by some given set of constraints, and I come to the table expecting some other set of constraints that violate yours then there is bound to be some friction. Often this friction ends up being subtle, and the source may even go unrecognized. Just as you don't consciously consider that most cultures insist that you where shoes on both feet instead of just one, but you would probably know that something was a bit off if you saw someone with a single bare foot, people tend to sense that something is wrong when their constraints are violated even if they can't point out precisely what it is. This friction often leads to roleplaying that just isn't fun. There's a constant undertone of dissatisfaction which can lead to frayed tempers and angry outbursts.

This is why it is important to understand what your constraint expectations are and to understand what the other players' constraint expectations are. Discuss them! It's important and useful to do so, and it can save you a lot of grief in the long run.

Don't worry if your constraints don't match up with someone else's. People have different ideas about what they want to do and about what is and isn't acceptable. That's to be expected, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. This is why discussion is so important. Often you can work out your differences and assemble a shared set of constraints that everyone can be happy with.

A word of warning, sometimes you just can't make everyone happy. This is true in any social activity. Sometimes you just can't agree on what you want on your pizza, and no compromise presents itself. This doesn't say anything about you as people, or even anything about your relationship with one another. It's just a point on which you can't agree, and the wise solution is to just eat something besides pizza. If you find yourself in this sort of situation when roleplaying, take the wise way out: do something together that's not roleplaying.

That said, it isn't all that common to find yourself at a point in which no compromise can be made. Generally everyone can give up a little something until you have something you can work with. So just because it's not obvious how you can all be satisfied doesn't mean that there's not some way and that you shouldn't work toward it.

Designing for constraint

If you are designing a game then you probably have a fairly specific vision of what you want your game to look like when people actually sit down and play it. You have a set of constraints that you want players to follow. So one of your primary tasks is to find a way to communicate those constraints and to make them compelling enough to be adopted by your players. What makes this hard is that you only have one medium you can use to communicate your vision: your game text.

In the interest of providing some examples, the next section is taken up with analyzing the methods and levels of constraint utilized in three separate roleplaying texts. Specifically we'll be looking at Ralph Mazza and Mike Holmes' Universalis, Matt Wilson's Primetime Adventures, and Vincent Baker's Dogs in the Vineyard.

Hey Thomas,

Just some early comments:

You seem to enjoy using extreme and often graphic examples, which would be okay for an online discussion, but are sorta off-putting to read in print. For instance, "stab people in the face," "space aliens descend from the sky and slaughter everyone," "stabbing you in the eye," etc. Especially with my feelings on the unfortunate ubiquity of violence in roleplaying, these make me a bit uncomfortable.

In the end of the first section, I wanted to add to your implications of Chris's bricolage observation: the very act of suggesting, but, also, the act of rejecting someone's suggestion both radically influence play.

I wrote beside "The Nature of the Beast" a comment that says: "Smerf writes about society and culture like an English major :)" This isn't as strong a criticism as it may sound. People like Chris, with a much stronger background in anthro and sociology, write about culture in a very different way than those of us trained in the general humanities. It's less this blanket term for everything and more this specific set of issues and concerns that operates in observable and even quantifiable ways. I'm not saying that I want you to try to write like Chris, but, when you revise this, look at being less general and being more specific. Decide what you really need to say and say it.

In the next section, I think you need to specifically mention that people will, under special circumstances (or, sometimes, with no provocation at all), knowingly break social and cultural rules. Often, this isn't due to misunderstanding, but to other factors. Also, in this section, I don't think you're talking about Constraint as much, or that your definition of Constraint is become so general that it's less helpful. You seem to be talking about Constraint as "all the factors that keep players from saying the first thing that pops into their heads," which isn't as useful as defining it as the extra things added (specifically for THIS roleplaying experience) on top of the normal socio-cultural standards of interaction, individual personality bits, and general play preferences and habits.

Don't know if that helps, but thought you might like some feedback.

It does, thanks. A number of similar points were made by your brother as well, so there's probably going to be a good bit of work done on that section to tie the definition down to something useful.

Thomas